Search form

Living With the Gun

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

When I was a young man I had a Winchester hanging over my bedroom door. I thought the right to bare arms had something to do with Marilyn Monroe in a sleeveless dress. Guns were the building blocks of manhood. I had absolute faith in the gospel of the gun. But an age of anxiety was looming when we would come to fear even the water we drink.

As a child I fashioned sticks into the shape of guns until Santa left a Red Rider BB gun (with no warning that it might shoot my eye out). Next, when I was ten, I got the real thing: a powder-blasting, hand-me-down .22 single shot. And at 12, with my parents' blessing, I bought with my own money a 12-gauge Browning double barrel. At 19 I bought a Ruger Single Six for fast draw competition. Later as an adult I traded for a Marlin 30:30 lever-action that I never fired because it had "a killing range of five miles." Up the hierarchy of guns I went until I landed in the Army where a gun is never a gun but a weapon. And what was the difference between a gun and a weapon? Weapons are made to kill, I learned, and we, with obsolete M-l weapons from the last war, were killing machines. We charged the make-believe enemy to the blood-curdling cry: "To Kill. To Kill."

As a kid I was fast on the draw and a straight shooter. I learned my skills from Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Matt Dillon. They could shoot a gun out of a bad man's hand with a draw so quick it couldn't be captured on film. What I didn't learn from these Hollywood cowboys I later learned under the critical eye of my drill sergeant.

"Don't be a jerk-off, Reynolds. Squeeze it. Sque-e-e-e-ze it."

"I mean the trigger, you jerk-off."

Dale Evans was a sharpshooter too but she never counted for much. She was a girl...a woman...a lady. It was she I was shooting for—to protect and defend her honor with my blazing guns.

Nowadays, I'm still a gun owner. But my guns—the single shot .22. and the six-shooter, the only two I've kept all these years—are hidden away. Though I haven't fired either of them in a quarter century they feel as natural to my grip as a handshake from an old friend. I don't feel any fear of shooting my eye out or committing suicide because a gun is in my hands. I do occasionally dream of holding a burglar at bay until the police arrive. But the only ammo I have is an old .22 short swimming in a jar of pennies on my dresser. It's a clumsy fantasy that involves fishing the shell out of the pennies and slipping into the garage where the guns are hidden in a locked cabinet, finding the key to the cabinet and arming myself in the cold garage in my bare feet.

I only have one shot. What if I miss? What if the bullet's too old or is flawed and explodes the breech? Or what if it's not a burglar but a lover coming on cat's paws to surprise and delight me?

With a burst like gunfire the alarm goes off and saves me from this dream of exercising my Second Amendment right.

But this dream has raised some fundamental questions:

What are "arms"?

There is no distinction in the Second Amendment between a boot pistol and an intercontinental ballistic missile. How did we lose our right to have a backyard ICBM? Lets get on with it—let's arm the people with real weapons.

Who are "the people"?

Is the author of the Second Amendment talking about all the people? Or just the chosen few that considered themselves to be "all" in 1791? If all the people had had the right to bear arms in 1841, then Nat Turner might have been the 11th president and white folks might be still hiding in a hole in the ground.

What makes us feel safe? Strapping on my six-shooter tightens my security blanket for a moment but when I consider the threat of tons of space ice streaking past our planet, I feel about as secure as a cow flop on a tractor wheel the second time around.

What of natural security—defending ourselves against nature—all those animals constantly stalking us? Don't we have a right to defend ourselves with AK-47s or, better yet, heat-seeking wolf missiles?

What is a "well-regulated militia"?

In George Washington's time it was a ragtag ménage of friends and neighbors watching each other's backs. They trusted each other. But what about now? Would you hand out guns to your neighbors across the hall—the ones with the spooky kid who dresses like a zombie and flashes your children pornographic videos from his iPad?

Who regulates the "well-regulated militia"?

If a well-regulated militia comes banging at the door at 2 a.m., how many of the people will answer the door and how many will run for the gun closet?

And where does the hierarchy of arms stop?

In 1843 the Secretary of State, a man named Upshur, was sure he'd found a cure for war: a cannon so big it would bring an army to its knees. He mounted it on a ship he named the Peacemaker and sailed out on the peaceful Potomac in order to demonstrate its peacemaking potential. He had it loaded with powder. A crowd of dignitaries sailed with him. They filled the deck. It was a lovely day. The water calm. The breeze gentle. He gave the order to fire and the Peacemaker exploded into splinters, killing most of the dignitaries on board.

The Peacemaker proved once again that peace is only a lull between wars. It is not a steady state. War on the other hand is the closest thing we have to a sure bet. Can we the people afford a pusillanimous generation refusing to arm themselves to defend our land?

What is "our land"?

A glance at history would suggest that our land is often someone else's land that was taken from them by folks with superior arms. Don't these people then have a right to take their land back the same as we the people have a duty to defend it as being ours?

Our arms today are the stuff of fantasy: A drone driven by a kid at a PlayStation in the privacy of his parent's family room can take revenge on children crawling like ants on the playground of his monitor. One click of the mouse will cure his bullied psyche. Can we deny this kid the right to defend himself even if his is a preemptive strike on bullies-to-be?

Is our little planet a safe place to live? It is not. It began with a bang and will end with a bang. But tomorrow, alas, is another day.

lj rey, aka, Lawrence Reynolds, lives in the past in the mythical village of Phoebe, Virginia where he imagines he writes award-winning short stories. ljrey@comcast.net

This post is, in my opinion, an example of why you do not allow non-writers to post on your blog. He seems to be trying to make a point, and then ends pretty abruptly without closing out his argument. The problem with posts such as this one from the guest blogger is that it repeats all of the cliches and red herring arguments that every anti-gun activist without making a single point.

Finding a person who "grew up with guns" and "was in the Army" to make an anti-gun statement is a tried and true example of using their story as a way of showing that not all gun owners are in support of guns. The stories are cute and the way he weaves in the idea of wild west heroes and his Drill Sergeant are precious, but no where do those examples add to his resume as an expert on gun ownership.

The real meat of the story comes when he decides to break from the allegory and comment on 2A and the militia and his neighbors, making quips along the way that are supposed to be funny. Using the ICBM argument, the snide way he says to let people have "real" weapons in a derisive tone shows his ignorance of what "arms" mean historically. If one studied what the Founders and their ancestors meant regarding "arms" then the guest blogger would not be at such a loss.

Then he brings the idea of race into the discussion by insinuating that if slaves had had access to weapons then us "white folk" would be hiding in a hole somewhere. What does this have to do with our discussion regarding gun ownership? It is a horrible attempt at a joke at the expense of every race, not just African Americans, it cheapens your argument in so far as you have one, and it is offensive in the main. It shows a great deal of projection on your part on the idea of race.

Finally, just as a good anti-gun Progressive does, he wades into the waters of what a militia is really, who regulates it, and how, and do you really want your neighbor to be a part of "your" militia? You know, the guy with the crazy kid? We have an army (that I was a part of, remember?) so why do we need a militia? That Second Amendment is so old!

Ending with a poke at out of control, imaginary arms races and the idea that "our land" was stolen from someone, the guest blogger shows his true colors and pitters away any argument that was left over. His points are pitifully moronic, make light of the discussion, and show little or any regard for the actual argument itself. If the author, or Mr. Sobel, were truly interested in discussing the issue, framing the argument, and having a reasonable back and forth, they would not insult those of us who care deeply about the issue and post this nonsense.

If, on the other hand, this was an attempt to make fun of a serious topic and deflect from the real issues, then you were quite successful.

Puh-lease! Why should everyone have to fall into the Libertarian line that the 2nd Amendment means no gun control whatsoever? The ICBM argument is sound because most modern guns would be barely recognisable to people living in the late 1700's. Then again if certain wealthier folks could in theory be bring their private cannons to battle then doesn't this mean the 2A also means not just guns but any weaponry a private person and afford and safely store?

Of how ridiculous that is. Your ilk keep pretending that we currently have NO gun control, and that people who support the second amendment demand that we continue with no gun control. In fact, we currently have rather a lot of gun control, which varies by state, and you pretend that the amount we now have is "none" and that it's somehow "criminal" that all these "bitter clingers" demand no gun control. It's a completely dishonest pretense at argument because we already have gun control, you just don't like it and pretend it doesn't exist.

Gil - I would push back on you a bit and ask how you know that "most modern guns would be barely recognisable to people living in the late 1700s?" But that is not the point. You focus on the guns themselves instead of the point that Fly made, i.e. the idea of gun ownership itself.

It is not a Libertarian argument that is being made, it is a Constitutional and historical argument. I think that we can all agree that people possessing fully automatic weapons, without the strictest of controls, would be a rather bad day. Conversely, I think it rather propper that all people be able to own whichever weapons they want to, as long as they do not violate the already stringent laws on the books regarding ownership. Not to mention the laws against murder, killing, etc.

The Second Amendment is not about guns. No matter what Piers Morgan or the NRA says, it is not. The fundamental right that 2A gives all citizens, and prohibits the government from violating, it the right to own weapons. And for what purpose? To not only defend themselves and their homes (a well-regulated militia) but also to keep arms as a counterbalance to an overstepping federal government (any first-person narrative or account from that time will tell you). To a man, almost every single Founding Father saw a standing army and an overbearing government as a threat, and the counterbalance was a well-trained, well-armed, well-educated populace. It is as true today as it was 200 years ago.

As for private cannons, it is true that previously rich men would form their own units to be pressed into federal service in times of war, specifically the Revolution, War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. I highly doubt that it pertains today. But good try.

How many people keep insisting that "no one needs" the nefarious "assault rifle" that no one can define, because if you used one to go hunting, you'd turn your prey into a steaming pile of hamburger. They absolutely cannot or will not accept that the purpose of the second amendment had NOTHING to do with hunting, skeet shooting, or olympic style marksmanship. I suppose it's in keeping with the liberal ideal that government should have absolute control over everything, because liberals can't seem to grasp the concept of government tyranny. What a non-liberal would define as government tyranny, liberals would define as "the government finally has adequate control".

Mark said everything that needed to be said. There's a Kindle essay by Stephen King titled Guns that discusses this, and he falls out on the side of gun control, but he at least makes some points, and states outright that what he proposes is not really a solution. It was a better read than this, but it's longer and it costs a buck to read it.

Come on fellas, really? I chuckled throughout the piece so was quite surprised when I read your comments Mark. I dare say an entire generation or even two were transported back to that Christmas morning when they spied IT under the tree. (or birthdays, etc ... doesn't matter the event.

Let it be what it is; there are plenty of others writing with an agenda. Keep on sending them in lj. I for one want to read more of your musings.

Welllll...I'm sort of glad I allowed my page to be the source of this controversy and discussion, and I have to confess, I myself am not at all well-versed or strongly opinionated on the subject, apart from the fact that I loved carrying around my Mattel Detective 6-shooter in my hidden shoulder holster until I was around 12. And like most of us, of course, I am not happy when people and kids get mowed down at movie theaters or schools.

I had lunch with the author--lj rey--just today, and was hoping to egg him on into defending himself in this comments section, but he simply said, "I already said what I have to say." For a writer--and he IS a writer--he is a man of few words in person. LJ received an MFA many years ago under the tutelage of Peter Taylor, one of the South's most esteemed authors, and Randell Jarrell, the noted poet who actually committed suicide at the time LJ was his student. Now 74ish, with Parkinson's, LJ was kind enough one day, when I was feeling extremely depressed, to invite me to "shoot the blues away" and took me into the woods where I held and fired a gun for the very first time in my life at the age of 59.

The only weapon I currently keep in the house is Squarcialupi, an Italian Catholic tabby who I have trained to be an attack cat.

"I myself am not at all well-versed or strongly opinionated on the subject"

Sir - if I may, your statement above is the crux of the problem when it comes to this issue. Those who are ill-informed or nefariously motivated attempt to weigh in on the issue of guns and gun control, with little to no facts to support their claims. People who have never held or even looked at a real gun decide that they are dangerous and no one should own one. People who think they know what is best for the rest of us "little people" decide that guns are too dangerous and that we may "put an eye out" with one. People who have decided that our culture is too violent (whatever that means) say that guns are to blame and therefore attempt to push their own sense of morality and virtue on the rest of us who understand that it is the person themself, not the gun, that is to blame for the violence and crime.

If I may suggest, please read up on the issue and become involved. I would rather you inform yourself and be a gun control advocate than be ignorant and sit on the sidelines. But I think if you actually took a neutral viewpoint and did some research, you could come to your own conclusions.

As a free man, you are free to use your cat as your means of defense. At least until someone decides that he is an assault cat and is too dangerous for you to own. Then the legislation begins. See the slope begin to form?

I hope you do get involved in some way. But go with open mind and understanding, not with anecdote and fallacy.

Hey Fly - glad you liked the reference. I hope you, Eliezer, and the rest of us can understand exactly what that metaphor means. We need to have our own Darmok and Jalad moment sometimes, that moment of clarity where we actually understand the others position or point.

There is a lot of wisdom in Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry got it pretty much right most of the time.

Fly - sometimes heel digging is extremely apropos, as in the fight for personal freedom. The gun debate is just one facet of that fight. Digging your heels in when it comes to "someone else" telling you what you can or cannot do, who you can or cannot marry, where you can and cannot go, etc. is the base of our social and historical discourse. It is the one thing, personal freedom, that we ALL should be digging our heels in on.

I will confess to being a closet Trekkie. As I said, there is a lot we can learn from Picard, Spock, and the rest of the Star Trek universe. We should look to those shows more often for examples on how we can solve our problems. I was always a huge fan of the later shows; the Borg and all that jazz.

with the value of heel-digging, but I think the heel digging should come AFTER the thorough listening that we give the opposition. Let them speak, give their reasoning, and we can evaluate it, and THEN dig in our heels. Of course, some people realize that's bad for their stance, so they shove through thousand-page legislation without bothering to read it, for example.

I'm not even a closet trekkie, I'm out! :-) I no longer have a TV, but I watched TOS,TNG, and DS9, and I think you're correct that we can learn a lot, both about how to behave, and how not to.

Fortunately, our own bloated government has not yet stuck implants in our heads and made us a hive mind....yet.

You know how you hear something for the first time and suddenly it starts popping up everywhere? This is the 2nd time in a few days someone has said "resistance is futile"--the first time I didn't know the reference and she enlightened me. Now again.

As for the head implants, this will sound a little bit like fringe conspiracy stuff, but I had a spiritual teacher in 1975, pre-technoworld, and she predicted then that over a period of time, we would all become inured in a gradual fashion to the idea of the chip. She said the first thing was the barcode, and scanning, then it would get more condensed into what we would now call a smart card...and eventually it would just make sense to us to put a chip under our skin that handles all our affairs.

And she warned us all to refuse the chip, but that the price of refusing would be our inability to "buy & sell"--I believe that was referring to a quote from Revelations, with the chip playing "The Mark of the Beast"--So she told us all to move to the land and start growing food. Which I didn't and I haven't. I DID spend several summers breaking my back for a vegetable garden and wound up in the fall with literally ONE salad and a little arugula left over.

A simpleton's look at the gun issue: there is glaring, obvious, common ground: no decent, sane person wants to see innocent people mowed down by maniacs. So starting from that agreement, seems like it shouldn't be so damn hard to sort the rules out. Sorry, I know my minimal understanding of all the talking points on both sides must be maddening to you...

There is a reason why people leave off subsistence farming and try to do *anything* else, given a chance.

Yes, regardless of whatever advantages a tech implant would grant, there is always going to be someone who knows, or can learn, how to hack it. This is bad enough when it happens to your computer or your bank account, but what if it happens to your body? Imagine the horror of watching yourself do something dreadful because you can't control your own body.

Yep, no one wants to see innocent people gunned down. That is the common point. A solution would have to account for a LOAD of variables, and part of it is going to be that we *can't* control other people like that. No matter how many laws are written, no matter how many resources are restricted, a population of millions is going to have some number of violently crazy people, many of which will not have displayed any violence until one catastrophic event, which will result in tearful howling about "why didn't someone stop it!?". We have civil rights. We can't lock up people until they DO something, and if the first thing they do is multiple murders, that's horrible, but how would you prevent it without violating their civil rights?

We do a lousy job of mental health care in this country. Most of the murders in my newspaper include "dude was in and out of mental health care but wasn't getting the treatment he needed". Note that they don't all include guns. Again, there is a civil rights issue. At what point is it appropriate to force someone into mental health treatment, on psych drugs, and who pays for it?

The gun issue is the one liberal types tend to focus on, because they see it as the "easy" solution. Just ban guns, and then even if someone is violently crazy, they can't do as much damage. However, that means taking something away from all the people who are NOT violently crazy, and the thing being taken away is also the most effective method of protecting ones self from other people who are violently crazy. Then consider that only those who obey the law would give them up; the many people who decide not to obey laws will still have them. Gang druggies will still have lots of guns, Average Joe will not. Robbers will have them, grannies will not.

Did you see that movie? The "PreCogs" use their psychic abilities to arrest criminals before they commit a crime. Your first paragraph, about the long distance manipulation of chip-implanted people would make a great premise for sci-fi script.

I think if you got to know me, you would definitely characterize me as "a liberal type" yet everything you said makes perfect sense to me (and raises some impossible questions to answer)...so beware of locking whole groups of people into a label with no room for deviations and differences.

So by your logic, even assault and automatic weapons need to be legal because the bad guys will still have them? That will be a really tough sell in this climate.

I'm not sure this is the right planet for me. I was about to say "Beam me up, Scotty," but, as Buckminster Fuller would have suggested, it really should have been "Beam me OUT, Scotty." He pointed out that we are actually looking out at the stars, not up.

I'd assume someone has already written that script, but I didn't see the movie you reference. It would be creepy, for sure!

Whether a person seems liberal or conservative depends much on who they're talking to. I've been called a "Bush worshiper" and a "Micheal Moore clone" in the same conversation by different people. I'm pro gun, pro death penalty, pro abortion, and pro gay marriage, so not sure which crowd I fit. Libertarian, I suppose.

You sound like "leans liberal" but not hard core ideologist. There's always room for discussion if people don't go hard core. When people actually discuss instead of merely justifying a pre-set stance, thing are both more interesting and more relaxed.

No, my stance is not that "assault and automatics should be legal because criminals have them". My argument with "assault" is that no one seems to be able to give a proper definition of what is and isn't an "assault weapon", so how can you regulate it? And if memory serves, fully automatic weapons have been illegal for some time. My stepfather had to make his own because of it. You can just file off a pin in some semi-auto .22 rifles to go fully auto. Probably not legal, though.

Aww, this place isn't so bad. We just have to accept that humanity, and the universe, are what they are, instead of what we want them to be. Our fellow humans are dangerous, and there isn't much we can do except try to make things better. I think conflict resolution, mindfulness, and proper care of mentally ill people will go farther than banning guns that look scary to people who don't know guns.

I wonder if the key word in your comment above is "sides"--the polarities and labels of opposing sides tend to push each other to dig their heels in even deeper, sticking to their....I almost said guns...position even more.

Eliezer - completely agree with the sentiment about "sides" and the innate diverging of positions into one group or the other. Of course, where there is discussion or discourse, there are usually sides or positions. I don't think we can help that.

I believe the answer, if there is one, is education. If I may paraphrase Yoda, education leads to understanding, understanding leads to open-mindedness, and open-mindedness leads to compromise.